. >> mitt romney and obama will meet in their first presidential abate in october, moderated by jim lehrer. once our live debate preview at 7:00 eastern and then the debate at 9:00. afterwards, your reaction in phone calls, e-mails, and tweets. fall was online at c-span.org. -- follow us. "washington journal" continues. host: john glastris is joining us to talk about your recent article in the magazine entitled "too important to fail." we are talking about the fairly recent consumer financial protection bureau. guest: that's right. cfpb is a regulatory agency set up to monitor and protect financial instruments. that's everything from mortgages to certain kinds of credit cards, payday loans, all sorts of things that average people use for savings and investment and so forth. they have not been regulated as products until now. it is the failure to regulate them as products that really precipitated the collapse of the financial system and our recession. host: you say that saving the cfpb is essential to restoring the economy and the american dream. guest: let's think about what has happened i